Scottish Executive

Ambulance Service

Fergus Ewing (Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive whether the use of single-crewed ambulances will now be ended, following the change of ministerial personnel for the health and community care portfolio.

Mr Andy Kerr: The policy remains as that which was set out for the member in the answer to S2W-10201 on 29 September 2004. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at:

  http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

Asbestos

Fiona Hyslop (Lothians) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what measures it is taking to ensure that development of brownfield sites provides for satisfactory disposal of asbestos.

Johann Lamont: We have published planning advice to local authorities on the development of contaminated land.

  Where planning applications are approved, conditions should be included to ensure that any contaminated land is remediated before the commencement of any new use. In that regard, planning conditions can be used to require the safe removal of asbestos.

Bridges

Marilyn Livingstone (Kirkcaldy) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has to help to reduce congestion on the Forth Road Bridge.

Nicol Stephen: Responsibility for the operation of the Forth Road Bridge is a matter for the Forth Estuary Transport Authority (FETA) in the first instance. The Executive is working closely with FETA and other stakeholders to address access and congestion issues associated with the bridge. The Executive has made contributions to initiatives such as the expansion of Ferry Toll Park and Ride, and the improvement of rail services across the Forth.

Cancer

Marlyn Glen (North East Scotland) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what progress has been made in reducing deaths from cancer.

Mr Andy Kerr: Since 1995 there has been a fall of 13.6% in cancer mortality among people aged under 75. This means we are on track to meet our target of a 20% reduction by 2010.

Cycling

Mr Mark Ruskell (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Green): To ask the Scottish Executive how the Integrated Transport Fund is supporting projects that include the provision of infrastructure for cycling.

Nicol Stephen: The Integrated Transport Fund supports cycling infrastructure projects through its Cycling, Walking and Safer Streets projects and Public Transport Fund awards.

Disclosure Scotland

Scott Barrie (Dunfermline West) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive how it will ensure that delays in processing applications by Disclosure Scotland do not recur.

Cathy Jamieson: Disclosure Scotland is now processing applications within its service level targets, and to ensure that this improved performance is sustained a performance management system has been put in place. Disclosure Scotland managers are in regular contact with customers and registered bodies to discuss demand and other factors that affect processing times.

Drug Misuse

Miss Annabel Goldie (West of Scotland) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive what the normal timescale is between a drug-addicted person first consulting a GP and being referred for clinical rehabilitation.

Mr Andy Kerr: This information is not held centrally.

  Our national waiting times information framework for drugs services began in April 2004. The first information output will be available by the end of November 2004.

  This initiative to improve the collection and monitoring of waiting times for drug services in Scotland will provide the Executive and Drug Action Teams with data on the time waited between initial referral and assessment and between the agreement of a care plan and four different types of treatment.

Environment

Chris Ballance (South of Scotland) (Green): To ask the Scottish Executive what its position is in respect of the proposal to develop a landfill site at Shewalton in North Ayrshire based on planning consent granted in 1978 and without an environmental impact assessment.

Ms Johann Lamont: This is a matter for North Ayrshire Council as planning authority to consider.

Health

Jackie Baillie (Dumbarton) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive how many people have been treated by the Vale of Leven Hospital Minor Injury Unit since its inception.

Mr Andy Kerr: There were 4,607 out-patient attendances at the Vale of Leven Hospital Minor Injury Unit in the quarter ending 31 March 2004.

Health

Carolyn Leckie (Central Scotland) (SSP): To ask the Scottish Executive what contact it has had with NHS Highland with regard to the continuing provision of neurological consultant services in the board’s area.

Mr Andy Kerr: This is a matter for NHS Highland, which is responsible for providing health services to people resident in the Highland area. The board has kept the Executive informed of its thinking on the issue.

Health

Carolyn Leckie (Central Scotland) (SSP): To ask the Scottish Executive what steps it will take to ensure the continuing provision of consultant neurological services in the NHS Highland area.

Mr Andy Kerr: This is a matter for NHS Highland. In planning and delivering services to its resident population, the board must meet targets and objectives laid down by the Scottish Executive.

Health

Mrs Nanette Milne (North East Scotland) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive how many days patients spent in hospital for in-patient care for, and treatment of, diabetes-related complications in (a) 2000, (b) 2001, (c) 2002 and (d) 2003.

Mrs Nanette Milne (North East Scotland) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive how many hospital appointments were made by, and for, patients receiving in-patient care for, and treatment of, diabetes-related complications in (a) 2000, (b) 2001, (c) 2002 and (d) 2003.

Mr Andy Kerr: The information is not available centrally.

Homelessness

Mr Frank McAveety (Glasgow Shettleston) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what progress it is making on the decommissioning of the Glasgow homeless hostels.

Johann Lamont: To date, 417 people from three hostels have been resettled with 103 more to be resettled by the end of this year with the completion of the closure of the 3rd hostel. A much larger number of people have been diverted to more suitable solutions who would, but for this programme, gone into the hostels system.

  The Scottish Executive remains fully committed to the decommissioning of Glasgow’s unsuitable large scale hostels and has made further funding available under the spending review to allow that to happen.

Hospital-Acquired Infection

John Farquhar Munro (Ross, Skye and Inverness West) (LD): To ask the Scottish Executive how many cases of (a) methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus  and (b) other forms of Staphyloccocus aureus there have been at Raigmore Hospital in the last five years for which records are available.

Mr Andy Kerr: Data are available on the rates of episodes of MRSA bacteraemia by health board. This information is published quarterly by the Scottish Centre for Infection Control and Environmental Health (see www.show.scot.nhs.uk/scieh ). The figures for Raigmore Hospital are not available separately.

NHS Boards

Jackie Baillie (Dumbarton) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what action it is taking to encourage NHS Argyll and Clyde to work with NHS Greater Glasgow in the interests of patients.

Mr Andy Kerr: NHS boards must be committed to meaningful co-operation with each other and their planning partners in order to deliver high quality, safe and sustainable health and health care services, irrespective of administrative boundaries.

  The Executive has recently been in discussion with NHS Argyll and Clyde and neighbouring boards about the importance of the fullest possible joint planning and working between them to ensure that services for Argyll and Clyde residents are as good as they can be. The Executive will continue to pursue this issue with the relevant NHS boards.

NHS Staff

Marilyn Livingstone (Kirkcaldy) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what progress has been made in increasing the number of doctors employed by the NHS.

Mr Andy Kerr: The Scottish Executive is committed to increasing the capacity within the medical staff group.

  Between September 1999 and September 2003, the total medical staffing establishment within NHS Scotland has increased by 14%.

NHS Staff

Shona Robison (Dundee East) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what funding will be provided to (a) doctors, (b) nurses, (c) allied health professionals and (d) scientific and professional staff to help subsidise continuing professional development.

Mr Andy Kerr: I refer the member to the answer to S2W-11035, on 21 October 2004. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search .

  Funding for continuing professional development will be included as part of the annual overall funding given to the NHS in the financial year and therefore there will be no requirement for additional monies made available for continuing professional development in the health service.

NHS Staff

Shona Robison (Dundee East) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what progress has been made towards meeting the target of recruiting an extra 600 consultants to the NHS by 2006.

Mr Andy Kerr: There is a commitment to increase consultant numbers by 600 and we are working hard to achieve this challenging target.

  Additional interventions to improve consultant recruitment and retention are required against a backdrop of UK and, indeed global, shortages in some specialties.

  An action plan has been developed to address these issues and includes a range of short, medium and longer term interventions, to help supplement and support on-going initiatives on retention and recruitment of consultants. The Scottish Executive is working with NHS boards to achieve this.

  The commitment to increase consultants by 600 may be influenced by the work being undertaken by the Advisory Group on Service Change (chaired by professor David Kerr) on the development of a national Framework for Service Change.

NHS Staff

Mr Adam Ingram (South of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive how many clinical psychologist posts are currently unfilled, broken down by NHS board area.

Mr Andy Kerr: The specific information requested is not currently available centrally. However, following a pilot data collection exercise during 2004, a full vacancy census is currently underway. Results are due to be published in early 2005.

NHS Waiting Times

Linda Fabiani (Central Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what action it is taking to improve the median waiting times for appointments with an orthopaedic surgeon.

Mr Andy Kerr: The Executive has not set any targets for median waiting times. Our policy is to reduce waiting times for all patients, with particular priority being given to treating those patients who have experienced the longest waits. That is why we are committed to ensuring that from December 2005 no patient will wait more than 26 weeks for a first out-patient appointment with a consultant, following referral.

  I refer the member to the answer to S2W-11086, on 25 October 2004. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

National Theatre

Chris Ballance (South of Scotland) (Green): To ask the Scottish Executive what costs were incurred as a result of the redrawing of plans for the arts factory in Easterhouse, and any other related work, in order to base the National Theatre there.

Ms Patricia Ferguson: The initial cost estimate, provided by Glasgow City Council (GCC), for locating the administrative headquarters of the National Theatre of Scotland within the Easterhouse Cultural Campus is £150,000. A detailed cost breakdown of the actual work involved is expected from GCC within the next two weeks and this more detailed and accurate estimate will be notified to the MSP and lodged with the Parliament’s Reference Centre.

Planning

Fergus Ewing (Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive why planning permission is necessary for the erection of shelters for horses in fields; why they are not exempt as agricultural buildings, and whether it will amend planning law to remove them from the scope of developments that require planning permission.

Johann Lamont: Whether a structure requires planning permission is a matter for the planning authority, who must decide whether what is being proposed is a development. The Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997 defines "development" as "the carrying out of building, engineering, mining or other operations in, on, over or under land, or the making of any material change in the use of any buildings or other land". This would be subject to the general legal rule that buildings that are considered de minimis would not need permission. Again, this would be a matter for the planning authority given the facts and circumstances of the particular case.

  Under the terms of Article 26(2)(e) of the 1997 act, certain uses of land are not considered to involve development. This includes certain types of agricultural use. Again, whether or not such a use falls within the exception is a matter for the planning authority.

  In addition, Class 18 of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (Scotland) Order 1992 grants permitted development rights, subject to conditions and limitations, for works and structures where the use is agricultural. Again, this would be a matter for the planning authority to consider.

  We have no plans to make any changes to the legislation in this regard.

Public Private Partnerships

Mr Bruce McFee (West of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what approaches were made by Renfrewshire Council before 2 September 2004 concerning the authority’s proposal to review the overall scope of the Renfrewshire Schools public private partnerships involving only one bidder.

Mr Tom McCabe: The scope of Renfrewshire Council’s schools public private partnerships project is a matter for the council.

Rail Network

Karen Whitefield (Airdrie and Shotts) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive when the Airdrie to Bathgate rail link will be completed and when the new service will be operational.

Nicol Stephen: The rail link is planned for completion by the end of 2008 with new services running shortly thereafter.

Recycling

Dr Elaine Murray (Dumfries) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what action it is taking to assist local authorities in upgrading recycling points and centres.

Ross Finnie: £500,000 has been made available to upgrade recycling points and centres. This is in addition to funding local authorities have already received through the Strategic Waste Fund for recycling and composting infrastructure.

Roads

Alasdair Morgan (South of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive whether there has been any progress in relation to the six road improvement schemes planned for the A75.

Nicol Stephen: Yes, proposals for three of the six planned schemes have now been published and are available for public comment.

Scottish Water

Roseanna Cunningham (Perth) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive how many constraints on development are currently imposed by Scottish Water and what the extent of those constraints is, broken down by (a) parliamentary constituency and (b) local authority.

Lewis Macdonald: Development constraints are not imposed by Scottish Water, they arise where water infrastructure requirements are greater than was either envisaged or planned at the time of approving Q & S II.

  Information about constraints on development was assembled from returns provided by all 32 Scottish local authorities to Scottish Water. It is therefore broken down by local authority area, but not by parliamentary constituency.

  This information was assembled by Scottish Water into a report which was given to the Scottish Executive and to all Scottish local authorities last year. A copy of this report is available in the Parliament’s Reference Centre (Bib. number 34015)

  Chapter 4 of the current consultation document Investing in Water Services 2006-2014 (Bib. number 33325) explains that further work is on-going to consider a number of issues that may influence the figures given in the 2003 report and in the consultation document.

Scottish Water

Des McNulty (Clydebank and Milngavie) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-1153 by Ross Finnie on 4 August 2003, what measures Scottish Water is taking to promote water efficiency to domestic and business customers.

Lewis Macdonald: Scottish Water is undertaking a number of measures to promote water efficiency. For household customers these include the production of leaflets relating to water efficiency in the home and garden, education packs for schools and localised water efficiency campaigns. In relation to business customers, these include water audits and efficiency workshops for key account holders, information leaflets and support for other initiatives to reduce water consumption.

Security Industry

Donald Gorrie (Central Scotland) (LD): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it plans to introduce a licensing system to regulate private security firms.

Cathy Jamieson: We are committed to introducing regulation of the private security industry. We will achieve this by extending the remit of the Security Industry Authority to include Scotland at the earliest possible legislative opportunity.

Sex Offenders

Dr Elaine Murray (Dumfries) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what action it is taking to ensure that sex offenders are properly supervised in the community.

Cathy Jamieson: We are implementing reforms stemming from the Cosgrove and McLean reports to make the arrangements for managing the risks from sex offenders more robust. Additional funding has also been made available to local authorities to develop an enhanced throughcare service for prisoners, including sex offenders, from point of sentence and following release. And we have introduced a bill to protect potential victims from sexual harm from offenders.

Sign Language

Cathy Peattie (Falkirk East) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what plans it has to increase the number of British Sign Language/English Interpreters in Scotland.

Malcolm Chisholm: The Scottish Executive will support two major new initiatives.

  The first will provide project funding to the Scottish Association of Sign Language Interpreters to implement a "training of trainers" academic course to be delivered at Heriot-Watt University, in association with Edinburgh University. In two years this will create around 10-15 BSL/English Interpreter trainers working directly in Scotland.

  Our target is to double the number of registered BSL/English interpreters in Scotland and, given that there are currently 44 of them, this is a very significant step towards achieving that.

  The second will be a challenge fund for further and higher education institutions to develop other courses and materials to help increase the number of British Sign Language/English Interpreters.

  These initiatives will be facilitated by the allocation of £500,000 between 2004 and 2007. These initiatives respond to the recommendations of British Sign Language and Linguistic Access Working Group, which is convened by the Scottish Executive.

Social Services

Donald Gorrie (Central Scotland) (LD): To ask the Scottish Executive what progress has been made in implementing Action Plan for Social Services Workforce, issued in April 2002.

Euan Robson: A great deal of progress has been made on the 12-point Action Plan, as follows:

  1. Awareness and Career Recruitment Campaign

  The multi-layered Care in Scotland campaign, involving TV, radio and press, was launched in October 2002. The steering group which shaped the campaign at its outset had representation from Association of Directors of Social Work (ADSW), COSLA, Careers Scotland, SQA and professional and user bodies. The first two phases of the campaign have undoubtedly helped to change perceptions of working in social care. The second phase received added profile from January to February 2004 through press and radio advertising and through enhancement of the website, www.careinscotland.co.uk. The third phase of the campaign will take place between mid-November 2004 and mid-March 2005. This third phase is aimed at encouraging those with a latent interest in the sector to explore local training and employment opportunities in the sector. The TV, press and radio for Phase Three will roll-out on a regional basis in direct support of nine regional "open days" across Scotland which provide a wide array of employers, training providers and voluntary organisations the opportunity to present their organisation to the passing public.

  2. Joint Ministerial Meetings

  A number of meetings have been held, and a further one is being planned. In addition, senior officials from Health and Early Years are significantly involved in workforce planning for the social services sector, ensuring that there is firm cross-fertilisation of ideas and strategies at both ministerial and official level.

  3. Workforce and Recruitment

  I chair the National Workforce Group (NWG) whose members are key stake-holders drawn from relevant Scottish organisations and agencies. The NWG aims to provide cohesion and strategic direction for the development of the social services workforce of the future. The NWG is supported by three workstreams which aim to deliver:

  A new education and training strategy for the sector. The draft National Training Strategy will be available for consultation within the next few months;

  Improved workforce intelligence. A recent production of the Workforce Intelligence workstream is Scotland’s Social Care Labour Market (see also point 8 below) an important report outlining – for the first time in Scotland or, indeed the UK, the labour market profile of this sector. This report (which will be updated annually) allows workforce planning, both locally and nationally, to be carried out on a more proactive basis. The report is available at www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications, and

  Improved HR Management. A workbook to support and promote best HR practice in the sector is currently under development. The document, which will be of use to front-line social services staff as well as line managers and HR staff, is a joint production of the NWG and the ADSW’s Supporting Front-Line Staff Initiative (see point 6 below also). The HR Group has also run a number of seminars in the summer of 2004 to support the sharing of best practice for retaining social work and social care staff, and is planning further roadshows on different HR themes of key interest to the sector.

  The Minister for Education and Young People, Peter Peacock, announced a broad review of social work in June 2004. The review will seek to:

  clarify the role of the social worker;

  strengthen leadership and management in the sector;

  address capacity issues, and

  develop a stronger culture of quality assurance and performance improvement.

  4. Director of Policy Co-ordination

  Kate Vincent was appointed at the end of April 2002.

  5. £3.5 Million Additional Funding to Local Authorities

  Additional £3.5 million specific grant was allocated to local authorities in the financial year 2002-03. This funding was to support further training of frontline staff. In 2003 (financial year 2003-04), further funding of £9 million over three years was announced. This was provided to help local authorities plan their training needs over a longer period of time and also to help support the National Training Strategy which will be going out to consultation shortly (see point 3 above).

  6. Support for Front Line Staff - Renewal of Pump Priming Funds for ADSW

  The ADSW has appointed a full-time project manager on a secondment basis to take forward work on issues identified in ADSW's "Supporting Front Line Staff" document. This report highlighted stress, violence at work, absenteeism, helping staff manage change and minimising staff time spent on administration. The project manager has now been in post for over a year and is an integral member of the NWG’s HR Group. She is currently producing, in collaboration with the HR Group of the NWG, a workbook setting out a HR framework and detailed line management tactics to support front line social service staff. It is expected that this document will be available by summer 2005.

  7. Training in Leadership and Management - Scottish Leadership Foundation (SLF)

  The SLF has developed a programme of training in leadership and management for middle and front line managers. This training which started in 2003 is proving very successful, and three cohorts (each of about 100 middle managers) have now embarked on their post-qualification Leading to Deliver training programme.

  8. Economic Study of the Children's Labour Market

  As noted in point 3 above, the first report on Scotland’s Social Care Labour Market is now available. It was published in August 2004 and will be updated annually.

  9. Integrated Human Resources Working Group and Planning Together

  As noted in point 3 above, one of the distinct workstreams of the National Workforce Group is a HR Management Group.

  10. Return to Learn (RtL) Initiative for Front-Line Staff

  The first RtL course, developed and run by the Workers Education Association and UNISON, started in October 2002 and have been successfully rolled out since.

  11. Improving Access to Professional Training

  We have introduced a Fast Track Graduate Recruitment Scheme. The scheme is currently an £11 million investment, allowing graduates from other disciplines to gain a social work qualification in under two years. It has the potential to take the total number of fast-track social workers to 550 over a four year period (a pilot run of the scheme, followed by a further three year commitment to roll out the scheme). This addition of up to 550 social workers will increase the size of the local authority social work workforce by more than 10%. To date, nearly 3,000 people have applied for a fast-track place. Recruitment to the second year of the three-year roll-out will commence in January 2005.

  The new Sector Skills Councils will take over and expand the functions of the National Training Organisations across the UK. We are making sure that the proposals for these Councils are relevant to the needs of Scotland and in line with the Executive’s joined up agenda.

  We have been examining professional and vocational education reforms. Two project groups have been set up. One, with representation from professional and user bodies, the higher education institutions and the Scottish Social Services Council, has been looking specifically at the structure and viability of the new four-year honours degree. It has developed Standards in Social Work Education (SiSWE) which parallel the Standards in Initial Teacher Education and equivalent documents being developed for nursing, midwifery and health visiting. This will allow us at a later date to identify common elements in the training of all these different professional disciplines. Incorporating as it does the Quality Assurance Agency benchmark statement, the National Occupational Standards and identifying expected outcomes at the point of qualification, the standards will also streamline the assessment process and replace the current CCETSW competences against which students are currently assessed at the point of qualification.

  A second project group is looking specifically at the place of practice learning in the new degree. Work has been commissioned to identify the current costs and funding of practice learning and student support costs associated with the placements. The group is clear that directly supervised and assessed practice will constitute an important part of the new degree course, but is keen to encourage more flexible and innovative approaches to placements including allowing relevant previous experience to be taken into account.

  Both groups have been considering what transitional arrangements need to be put in place to allow the changeover from the existing Diploma in Social Work (DipSW) to the new degree to occur as smoothly as possible.

  12. Developing the Role of the Specific Centres

  The Executive now supports six specific centres (over £3 million per annum in total) and is collaborating with them to develop their role in line with meeting the training needs of the workforce in specific areas. The six centres are SIRCC (Scottish Institute for Residential Child Care); STRADA (Scottish Training on Drugs and Alcohol); Scottish Consortium on Learning Disabilities (SCLD); Scottish Institute for Excellence in Social Work Education (SIESWE); Dementia Development Centre, and the Criminal Justice Social Work Development Centre.

Tourism

Jeremy Purvis (Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale) (LD): To ask the Scottish Executive what proportion of Scottish tourism revenue is generated from tourists from England.

Ms Patricia Ferguson: In 2003 total tourism revenue in Scotland was estimated from survey data to be around £4.4 billion. Of that, just over £2 billion was generated from tourists from England, accounting for around 46% of the total tourism revenue earned in Scotland.

Young Offenders

Mr Kenny MacAskill (Lothians) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive, with reference to pages 20 and 21 of Building a Better Scotland Spending Proposals 2005-2008 , what funding will be allocated to ensure that all young offenders get a "right place, right time" intervention and under what section of Table 3.01 any such funding will be provided.

Cathy Jamieson: Funding for the provision of youth justice services is at record levels (£63 million in 2005-06) and this level of funding has been maintained in our new spending proposals. Details can be found in table 5.01 of Building A Better Scotland .

Young Offenders

Mr Kenny MacAskill (Lothians) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what level of funding has been provided to the (a) Youth Crime Prevention Fund and (b) Intensive Support Fund in each year since inception.

Mr Kenny MacAskill (Lothians) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what level of funding it will provide to roll forward and continue investment in the (a) Youth Crime Prevention Fund and (b) Intensive Support Fund, as referred to in Building a Better Scotland Spending Proposals 2005-2008 .

Cathy Jamieson: The table sets out funding under the Youth Crime Prevention Fund and the Intensive Support Fund in each year since they started in 2002-03. Around £1.5 million of this investment has gone on capital projects and investments. Budgets will be held level from 2005-06 to 2007-08.

  

 
Youth Crime Prevention Fund
Intensive Support Fund


2002-03 (actual)
£3,447,550
£2,972,744


2003-04 (actual)
£2,423,553
£2,127,084


2004-05 (budget)
£2,624,701
£1,925,556


2005-06 (budget)
£2,608,435
£1,703,045

Young People

Alex Johnstone (North East Scotland) (Con): To ask the Scottish Executive what support is available to assist community groups in acquiring premises for the provision of facilities for young people.

Malcolm Chisholm: The Executive provides grants for premises to voluntary youth and community organisations through the Local Capital Grants Scheme. The Rural Challenge Fund and Social Inclusion Partnership Fund can also provide capital funding for the acquisition of premises. And funding may also be available through the new Futurebuilders Scotland programme.

Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body

Parliamentary Accommodation

Mr Brian Monteith (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con): To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body what the total running costs, including rents, repairs and administration, were for the temporary accommodation of the Parliament for each year since 1999-2000.

John Scott (on behalf of the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body): The total running costs for the temporary accommodation, for rents, rates, planned and reactive building maintenance, cleaning and utilities, in each year since 1999-2000 are as follows:

  

1999-2000
£2,197,090


2000-01
£3,114,720


2001-02
£3,726,736


2002-03
£3,861,682


2003-04
£3,682,231



  These figures include contractors’ administration costs only, as it is not possible to determine time spent by parliamentary staff on each of the above services.

Parliamentary Accommodation

Mr Brian Monteith (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con): To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body what the estimated total running costs will be for Holyrood for each of the next five years.

John Scott (on behalf of the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body): Forecasts have not been submitted beyond 2006-07 and cost histories will enable future years’ budgets to be set with greater certainty. The estimated total running costs for Holyrood accommodation (based on existing fabric and building services), for rent, rates, planned and reactive building maintenance, cleaning, and utilities, up to 2006-07 are as follows:

  

2004-05
£5,465,500


2005-06
£5,994,600


2006-07
£6,011,700



  The estimate for 2004-05 is a combination of interim and Holyrood accommodation costs and allows for double running over the migration period.

  The rates for Holyrood have not yet been set by the assessor, and an estimated cost of £4 million has been used for budgetary purposes, as advised to the Finance Committee on 5 October 2004.